bride and groom were gone.

"Queer fellow, Breckenridge," said George Pomeroy, old Peter's
nephew, a red-faced, florid, simple man of forty.

"Well, he never should have married as he did, it's all in a
mess," a woman's voice said lazily. "Rachael's extraordinary of
course--there's no one quite like her. But she wasn't the woman
for him. Clarence wanted the little, clinging, adoring kind, who
would put cracked ice on his forehead, and wish those bad
saloonkeepers would stop drugging her dear big boy. Rachael looks
right through him; she doesn't fight, she doesn't care enough to
fight. She's just supremely bored by his weakness and stupidity.
He isn't big enough for her, either in goodness or badness. I
never knew what she married him for, and I don't believe anyone
else ever did!"

"I did, for one," said Miss Vanderwall, flicking the ashes from
her cigarette with a well-groomed fingertip. "Clarence
Breckenridge never was in love but once in his life--no, I don't
mean with Paula. I mean with Billy." And as a general nodding of
heads confirmed this theory, the speaker went on decidedly: "Since
that child was born she's been all the world to him. When he and
Paula were divorced--she was the offender--he fretted himself sick
for fear he'd done that precious five-year-old an injury. She
didn't get on with her grandmother, she drove governesses insane,
for two or three years there was simply no end of trouble. Finally
he took her abroad, for the excellent reason that she wanted to
go. In Paris they ran into Rachael Fairfax and her mother--let's
see, that was seven years ago. Rachael was only about twenty-one